On Thursday evening there was the last Sandpit of the year. The Haberdashery (sometimes formerly known as 'Casework,' formerly known as 'Capricious,' sometimes referred to as 'La Louche'), our new game design collective, ran 'Schooner or Later' (formerly 'The East India Company Game') again and it went really well.
Next time we're hoping for fewer name changes.
Do you remember how the game works?
Let me remind you: It's a trading game based on the East India Company. Everyone has to give up their bags as collateral and in exchange are given the rental of a company boat (their hands, cupped together. We take their bags so that they don't have more carrying capacity.)
There are three countries involved in this particular trade triangle: India, China, and Great Britain.
Britain will buy most things at a very good price, but due to the trade monopoly agreement it has with the EIC, if you trade there you have to take British made goods with you- a whole heap of wool (cotton balls!). No one will buy the wool, but sometimes India and China can be persuaded to take some for a fee. Mostly it just fills up your boat.
India sells pepper (pepper corns!), and also grows opium. (balloons! hard to hide! easy to pop!)
China sells tea (tea bags) and will, angrily, accept opium. As a reward for getting the opium (un-popped balloon with your name on it) into China and helping to disrupt the economy and therefore drive down the price of tea, the EIC will give you a £200 bonus at the end of the game for each load of opium you smuggle into China.
Smugglers need to be wary of the roving coast guards, but above board traders have nothing to fear. All of this takes place in as wide and varied a playing area as we can manage to get. In this case? Most of the ground floor of the National Maritime Museum.
We had about 35 people playing and some of them made trade agreements with each other and convoys and official distraction people while others did the opium running. It was kind of great. One man in a tricornered hat (the whole evening was shipping themed) decided to collect the cotton wool balls and place them in his hat. I decided he was a floating "America" and secretly hoped he would start making crafts out of them to re-sell to England.
At one point, due to a mis-calculation by one of our port representatives, for £50 one of our players was sold *all the tea in China*
Excellent. Also, that's a ridiculous price.
Figuring out what to use for currency in the game was a challenge since last time a limiting factor was that there simply wasn't enough money. Turns out that plastic coins were prohibitively expensive in the quantities we needed, so the cheapest option (we weren't allowed to use food, so spray painted beans were out of the question) was pennies.
Do you know how heavy 2,000 pennies are? REALLY, REALLY HEAVY.
Fortunately Josh took them home. They're no longer my problem.
(ps. Do you know how weirdly bank tellers will look at you when you ask for £20 in pennies?? £13 cleared out one bank's supply, so I actually had to go to two different banks to get it all. "Do you want some 2p coins?" Nope.)
(pps. Josh is threatening not to let me name games any more since the two the The Haberdashery put on at the NNM were named "Schooner or Later" and "Unlimited Port-ential" and that was 90% my fault.)
Showing posts with label oh my gosh what am I doing?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oh my gosh what am I doing?. Show all posts
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
Things I do with my time.
I've been collecting suitcases of games recently.
That makes it sound like I am collecting ridiculous quantities of marbles or jacks or chess pieces or something like that. This is not at all what I mean.
What I mean is that I have a suitcase full of The Fox Hunt (Hide & Seek), I have a suitcase full of Apocalypse Games (fire-hazard), and because at this point I've run out of wheely suitcases and a tank of helium is kind of hard to pack neatly in a bag: a pile of Baba Yaga (Casework).
Oh, and I totally forgot I also have a bag full of The East India Company Game (Capricious) which desperately needs a new title and is just in a tote bag so is easy to forget.
I spent yesterday working long into the night. (Must remember to never drink tea after 3pm. I can't handle my caffeine.) And while some of what I did was invite people to my events, get writing and emails done, sort out scheduling, have a meeting with some of my collaborators, etc. Another thing I did was cover my entire hallway in a cling film maze that blocked every single door to every single room (and the outside world) and inflate a single cow patterned helium balloon.
May every night be as eventful.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Fox. Pictures. Fox.
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| Map of the Magical Fox Territory |
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| Fox Parkour! |
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| Tom, our Fox Poo Man. |
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| A Young Fox With A Rules Sheet |
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| Fox Tail Construction |
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| Talking To The Magical Fox! Oooooh. |
I should mention that the lovely fox costumes in the parkour photo and the one of the girl holding the information sheet came from The Fox Project, a charity devoted to helping and rehabilitating foxes in the area. If you want to go check them out they can be found here.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Foxes, the game.
Most of Hide & Seek is up in Edinburgh right now for a big project for the fringe, but they've got a game on Saturday for the Hayward Gallery- so I've been brought in to run it. (I can't tell you how thrilled that makes me.) The game is for some unspecified number of families (or adults, but probably families) in the afternoon. I'm preparing for somewhere between 50 and 80 groups with the option to expand significantly if we need to.
The game is a sort of naturalist fox hunt. There is a fox who magically can turn into a human somewhere in the Southbank centre. We know what the boundaries of his territory are, but we're not quite sure where is earth (den) is. Can you help us? Foxes mark their territory with scent and faeces markers. They also mark important landmarks within their territory. Find some poo and dissect it, hopefully what they have been eating will give us some clues as to where they are currently. Oh, and his foot prints look like this...off you go.
Today I needed to pick up quite a lot of odds and ends for what has turned out to be rather a crafty game set up. It was great fun, and quite a lot like a treasure hunt looking for all the things I need. (still don't have fake flowers...will continue to hunt tomorrow.)
Something it would have been good to keep in mind:
Meters and Yards are quite significantly different. I now have three METERS of orangey brown fake fur...This is a ridiculous quantity.
At the end of the game when the earth has been found there will be a craft table with supplies for making fox tails to take home with you. It turns out that construction paper is difficult to find in London, particularly if you want only one specific colour and not a rainbow. So I was delighted when, after dejectedly finding absolutely nothing of use in the craft store, I went to the bookstore next door and found a bin filled with rolled up pieces of thick, brown packing paper. Which is perfect for what I need. And totally unexpected. Also, they had sidewalk chalk. Best store ever. Also, what? You're a bookstore!
In addition to making fox tails, players will need to dissect the fox poo that they find. (In order to discover what the fox has been eating to aid in locating them....this totally makes sense. Go with it.) So that means that A) I had to make quite a lot of salt dough to be used as fox poo and B) I had to figure out how to make it brown.
You know what people don't seem to sell? Brown food colouring. So I bought, along with 5 kilos of flour and bunch of salt: cocoa powder, soy sauce, onion gravy granules, and instant coffee. It's been exciting discovering what sorts of weird chemical reactions happen when you try to combine all of that together. So far the best in terms of colour has been cocoa powder mixed with a bit of oil and then kneaded into salt dough which has been made with coffee instead of water. It's a perfect colour, but unfortunately REALLY difficult to knead. Which I'm not particularly interested in considering how much of this I'm making. More experimentation proceeds apace.
My hands are currently covered in the lingering smells of soy sauce and cocoa powder with a just a slight hint of onion gravy.
It's gross.
The game is a sort of naturalist fox hunt. There is a fox who magically can turn into a human somewhere in the Southbank centre. We know what the boundaries of his territory are, but we're not quite sure where is earth (den) is. Can you help us? Foxes mark their territory with scent and faeces markers. They also mark important landmarks within their territory. Find some poo and dissect it, hopefully what they have been eating will give us some clues as to where they are currently. Oh, and his foot prints look like this...off you go.
Today I needed to pick up quite a lot of odds and ends for what has turned out to be rather a crafty game set up. It was great fun, and quite a lot like a treasure hunt looking for all the things I need. (still don't have fake flowers...will continue to hunt tomorrow.)
Something it would have been good to keep in mind:
Meters and Yards are quite significantly different. I now have three METERS of orangey brown fake fur...This is a ridiculous quantity.
At the end of the game when the earth has been found there will be a craft table with supplies for making fox tails to take home with you. It turns out that construction paper is difficult to find in London, particularly if you want only one specific colour and not a rainbow. So I was delighted when, after dejectedly finding absolutely nothing of use in the craft store, I went to the bookstore next door and found a bin filled with rolled up pieces of thick, brown packing paper. Which is perfect for what I need. And totally unexpected. Also, they had sidewalk chalk. Best store ever. Also, what? You're a bookstore!
In addition to making fox tails, players will need to dissect the fox poo that they find. (In order to discover what the fox has been eating to aid in locating them....this totally makes sense. Go with it.) So that means that A) I had to make quite a lot of salt dough to be used as fox poo and B) I had to figure out how to make it brown.
You know what people don't seem to sell? Brown food colouring. So I bought, along with 5 kilos of flour and bunch of salt: cocoa powder, soy sauce, onion gravy granules, and instant coffee. It's been exciting discovering what sorts of weird chemical reactions happen when you try to combine all of that together. So far the best in terms of colour has been cocoa powder mixed with a bit of oil and then kneaded into salt dough which has been made with coffee instead of water. It's a perfect colour, but unfortunately REALLY difficult to knead. Which I'm not particularly interested in considering how much of this I'm making. More experimentation proceeds apace.
My hands are currently covered in the lingering smells of soy sauce and cocoa powder with a just a slight hint of onion gravy.
It's gross.
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| Best Shopping Trip Ever |
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Things That Are Broken
This is an excuse post- mainly my computer's fan is on the fritz meaning that it overheats and freezes (how it delights me to write "overheats and freezes") rendering it largely useless. I mean, until I fix it...in the mean time Ella has generously let me use her computer meaning that I can, if necessary, be on skype or check my email, but (and here is the excuse part) due to the quirks of her keyboard (it takes a LOT of effort to use the space bar) I'm disinclined to blog a whole lot.
Which is why there will be no real content in this post.
Mostly the reason I'm writing this at all though, is to let you know that my 10 year old yoga pants finally bit the dust half way through class and are now held together with staples.
Because I am pure class.
Which is why there will be no real content in this post.
Mostly the reason I'm writing this at all though, is to let you know that my 10 year old yoga pants finally bit the dust half way through class and are now held together with staples.
Because I am pure class.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Some Ideas From Children
I'm marking the kid's Religious Education books. Okay, so I probably should have done this...before. But I'm doing it now! So that's good.
At one point we were illustrating the metaphor of good= light and bad= dark. I've just got to a page where one of the children has drawn a giant warning sign that says "DANG" with exclamation point above it. I think it's adorable! (even though the next page makes it clear that what he was *trying* to write was "danger," which isn't nearly as funny as Dang!)
One child has suggested that on the sabbath Jewish people could go to the opera or go swimming. Those are his only two suggestions. I kind of love it. This same kid's explanation for why David fought Goliath was the reward of £10,000. (I don't remember that part of the story...?)
Possibly my new favourite: under Things I Wouldn't Do If My Parents Were Watching I found the suggestion that perhaps it would not be the best idea to smuggle a mummy from Egypt into the house under your folk's noses.
I heartily agree.
Also, "don't wobble with your silly faces." I mean, who could disagree with that?
And don't make the BT tower break. Very important to remember not to do that in front of your parents.
At one point we were illustrating the metaphor of good= light and bad= dark. I've just got to a page where one of the children has drawn a giant warning sign that says "DANG" with exclamation point above it. I think it's adorable! (even though the next page makes it clear that what he was *trying* to write was "danger," which isn't nearly as funny as Dang!)
One child has suggested that on the sabbath Jewish people could go to the opera or go swimming. Those are his only two suggestions. I kind of love it. This same kid's explanation for why David fought Goliath was the reward of £10,000. (I don't remember that part of the story...?)
Possibly my new favourite: under Things I Wouldn't Do If My Parents Were Watching I found the suggestion that perhaps it would not be the best idea to smuggle a mummy from Egypt into the house under your folk's noses.
I heartily agree.
Also, "don't wobble with your silly faces." I mean, who could disagree with that?
And don't make the BT tower break. Very important to remember not to do that in front of your parents.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Conundrum
This blog is brought to you via Sir Ken Robinson. If you don't yet know about RSA animates, well, then, you're in for a treat. Go watch that (it's just under 12 minutes long) then come back here and we'll get this discussion started.
I watched that this afternoon. Sir Ken has long been an...idol? of mine. I don't tend to have massive work crushes on people all that often, but MAN I think his mind is amazing. And kind of genius, super interesting, and ooh, do you think he'd let me work with him??
Part of why I get so excited by his ideas is his sense that collaboration is both how people learn best and also what our workforce and economy are looking for now (and in the forseeable future). Collaborative environments excite me tremendously and I do my best to create a classroom environment that encourages and promotes that.
Today was my first class back with the French kids. We've been on half term holiday and so I've not seen them in two weeks. It's always been an awkward time for a class- an hour long music lesson after this bunch of four year olds have already spent all day in school. It's not a recipe for focus and alert attention. So I tolerate a fair bit of scurrying around and try to work with the energy and ideas that they've got.
We started in with our usual hello song to which one of the children started snorting like a pig. "Ah, I see B's turned into a pig over the holiday! Shall we all sing like a pig?" So we oinked through the hello song. I asked some of the other children what they had turned into over the break and we snapped like crocodiles, snorted like pigs (again), and barked like puppies. B. then curled up into my lap. I took that as an opportunity to see if I could remember the words to "rock a bye baby" or not. Part of me was wanting to take cues from the children and use whatever they offered. To "yes, and..." what they brought to class. Another part of me was hoping that lullabies would, well, lull them if not to sleep, then at least to a calmer frame of mind.
The thing that *really* gets me about the second half of this story is that we were songwriting today. It was meant to be a collaborative creative process (and largely was) and even with that intent, with that idea in my head and having watched this video this morning, I still ended up trying to get them to fit into a box.
B. doesn't speak a whole lot of English. He clearly enjoys class, and he clearly has a lot of energy. Does he have ADHD? I would be surprised, which doesn't mean that he focuses all that easily or that he doesn't spend a large portion of the class spinning around in a circle on his bottom.
Today we worked with drums and a set of chime bars to reinforce 'Sol' and 'Mi' as well as to continue working on rhythmic solfege and writing music up on the board. I. has totally got it, she's on the ball, she pays attention, and she only spins around on the floor sometimes. (She is also four after all.) She's the only girl in our class.
B. kept playing on the drums when he'd been asked not to; I took his drum away four times or so over the course of our lesson. Yet he was the first one to come up with lyrics "sit, watch, sit and watch" Great! Really good! On pitches that we'd been using and the rhythm we'd been practicing! Fantastic!! Then came "No, no, no piano" Also, correct pitches, sung in tune, a variation on the rhythm we'd been focusing on, really really good work. Slightly concerning lyrics that you kids just came up with there, but we can definitely work with that.
But he kept rushing off over to the chairs and climbing on to the stack of them, something I never allow them to do. He would drape himself on top of the other children, take my drum, go and grab a pile of sparkles that had been left on the floor that I was holding onto until after class because of their distraction. Clearly he wanted to be doing other things, who am I to be telling him not to? (You know, besides his teacher...) B. sets off the other boys and at one point all of them were screaming and wrestling. I was frustrated, I was annoyed, I slammed my hand down on to the floor to get their attention. To scare them.
I intentionally frightened a classroom of four year olds today.
What??!?
What is the ultimate goal of my class? Is it to encourage a love of music and an interest in exploring sound? Yeah. I would say so. But it is also to prepare them and give them concrete musical skills to take to their next level of lessons. I'd like them to have fun, and I would also like the kids to feel like they have ownership of their own music making. I don't want to stifle creativity, but I would also like to have the kids listen to me. And I really don't want to go around frightening small children.
There is so much more to think about here; this entry alone has about 5 threads running through it that I need to unpack more fully: my philosophy of classroom management, the nurturing of creativity and collaboration in children, rambunctious little boys versus teacher pleasing and focused little girls, entertaining versus educating (surely surely that can be the same thing??), and learning to make lessons that are engaging and fun and interesting even after a long day at school.
So much to learn.
I watched that this afternoon. Sir Ken has long been an...idol? of mine. I don't tend to have massive work crushes on people all that often, but MAN I think his mind is amazing. And kind of genius, super interesting, and ooh, do you think he'd let me work with him??
Part of why I get so excited by his ideas is his sense that collaboration is both how people learn best and also what our workforce and economy are looking for now (and in the forseeable future). Collaborative environments excite me tremendously and I do my best to create a classroom environment that encourages and promotes that.
Today was my first class back with the French kids. We've been on half term holiday and so I've not seen them in two weeks. It's always been an awkward time for a class- an hour long music lesson after this bunch of four year olds have already spent all day in school. It's not a recipe for focus and alert attention. So I tolerate a fair bit of scurrying around and try to work with the energy and ideas that they've got.
We started in with our usual hello song to which one of the children started snorting like a pig. "Ah, I see B's turned into a pig over the holiday! Shall we all sing like a pig?" So we oinked through the hello song. I asked some of the other children what they had turned into over the break and we snapped like crocodiles, snorted like pigs (again), and barked like puppies. B. then curled up into my lap. I took that as an opportunity to see if I could remember the words to "rock a bye baby" or not. Part of me was wanting to take cues from the children and use whatever they offered. To "yes, and..." what they brought to class. Another part of me was hoping that lullabies would, well, lull them if not to sleep, then at least to a calmer frame of mind.
The thing that *really* gets me about the second half of this story is that we were songwriting today. It was meant to be a collaborative creative process (and largely was) and even with that intent, with that idea in my head and having watched this video this morning, I still ended up trying to get them to fit into a box.
B. doesn't speak a whole lot of English. He clearly enjoys class, and he clearly has a lot of energy. Does he have ADHD? I would be surprised, which doesn't mean that he focuses all that easily or that he doesn't spend a large portion of the class spinning around in a circle on his bottom.
Today we worked with drums and a set of chime bars to reinforce 'Sol' and 'Mi' as well as to continue working on rhythmic solfege and writing music up on the board. I. has totally got it, she's on the ball, she pays attention, and she only spins around on the floor sometimes. (She is also four after all.) She's the only girl in our class.
B. kept playing on the drums when he'd been asked not to; I took his drum away four times or so over the course of our lesson. Yet he was the first one to come up with lyrics "sit, watch, sit and watch" Great! Really good! On pitches that we'd been using and the rhythm we'd been practicing! Fantastic!! Then came "No, no, no piano" Also, correct pitches, sung in tune, a variation on the rhythm we'd been focusing on, really really good work. Slightly concerning lyrics that you kids just came up with there, but we can definitely work with that.
But he kept rushing off over to the chairs and climbing on to the stack of them, something I never allow them to do. He would drape himself on top of the other children, take my drum, go and grab a pile of sparkles that had been left on the floor that I was holding onto until after class because of their distraction. Clearly he wanted to be doing other things, who am I to be telling him not to? (You know, besides his teacher...) B. sets off the other boys and at one point all of them were screaming and wrestling. I was frustrated, I was annoyed, I slammed my hand down on to the floor to get their attention. To scare them.
I intentionally frightened a classroom of four year olds today.
What??!?
What is the ultimate goal of my class? Is it to encourage a love of music and an interest in exploring sound? Yeah. I would say so. But it is also to prepare them and give them concrete musical skills to take to their next level of lessons. I'd like them to have fun, and I would also like the kids to feel like they have ownership of their own music making. I don't want to stifle creativity, but I would also like to have the kids listen to me. And I really don't want to go around frightening small children.
There is so much more to think about here; this entry alone has about 5 threads running through it that I need to unpack more fully: my philosophy of classroom management, the nurturing of creativity and collaboration in children, rambunctious little boys versus teacher pleasing and focused little girls, entertaining versus educating (surely surely that can be the same thing??), and learning to make lessons that are engaging and fun and interesting even after a long day at school.
So much to learn.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Music Video
I got done with work early this afternoon and on my walk to the tube wrote this song. The lyrics changed a bit by the time I got home, but close enough.
I was thinking of a song for the kids to sing, but then while singing it to myself it got...bigger. So now I'm not really sure what to do with it, but I spent an enjoyable hour trying to find pictures that would go with it so I could make a little video to put on on the blog.
Hope you enjoy it!
I was thinking of a song for the kids to sing, but then while singing it to myself it got...bigger. So now I'm not really sure what to do with it, but I spent an enjoyable hour trying to find pictures that would go with it so I could make a little video to put on on the blog.
Hope you enjoy it!
Screwing with their little heads/accents
In year 2 singing we are doing songs about monsters. To my delight the song that we started today was “flying purple people eater” which would have gone a lot better if I’d actually known the tune before we started... but hey, one can’t have everything.
In any case because I was winging it like mad- when one of the kids called out “It sounds American!” I ran with that. I had them all cock their hips to one side like a cowboy while singing “It was a one eyed, one horned, flying purple people eater” and then TWANGING it up as much as possible (and maybe growling a bit) to sing “sure looked strange to me.”
A group of girls were singing the last line like that on the way down the stairs to lunch and I chortled to myself.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Barren, Barren Blog
Continuing with alternative ways of letting you know what I've been up to, here are some random extracts from my diary! [Ed. 'Daily Planner,' remember?]
Jan 18
8:15 school
1pm meeting with head of EYFS
2pm Sarah concert/Liverpool St
4pm Mer and Sarah- take over the world
7:30 yoga
9:30 skype Nik
Jan 19
8:15 school
CV to Rob! Tonight!!
7pm pints and planning Fire-Hazard
Jan 20
8:15 school
6:30 Toni
dinner with Linda
Jez meetup!
Jan 29
Take care of Muffy! [Ed. Muffy is Mer's kitten]
10:15 Music Workshop
6pm Marissa's housewarming!
[Ed. An email I received the following Monday regarding the workshop
Feb 2
8:15 school
9am EYFS meeting
11am lesson observation
Russian lunch! sign up!
7pm Fire-Hazard Pints and planning!
Send CPD participants email! Do I need the djembe?
Feb 3
8:15 school
12:20 mtg with Headmistress
Impro Show! Arrive by 8:30! Aieee!
Feb 4
6:30 Gwyn- take over the world
Feb 5-6
CPD weekend (meet Dutch folks at 9:50)
Harrow! (Call Ruth!)
Nik @ Night
This week we've got another Improv show (Thursday! 9:30! If you're in London you should really come! It's only £5! And we might even be funny!) And this weekend is Heist take 2 at the Old Police Station. (Sold out in 4 hours! Woah...) And school is trucking along (we've planned an open music day AND a performance/recital thing for next term!)
What you don't see listed in my diary is my daily ohmygodwhatamIgoingtodonext*year*???? freakouts. I try not to document those too much...
Busy busy busy bee.
Jan 18
8:15 school
1pm meeting with head of EYFS
2pm Sarah concert/Liverpool St
4pm Mer and Sarah- take over the world
7:30 yoga
9:30 skype Nik
Jan 19
8:15 school
CV to Rob! Tonight!!
7pm pints and planning Fire-Hazard
Jan 20
8:15 school
dinner with Linda
Jez meetup!
Jan 29
Take care of Muffy! [Ed. Muffy is Mer's kitten]
10:15 Music Workshop
6pm Marissa's housewarming!
[Ed. An email I received the following Monday regarding the workshop
"Dear all
The composition workshop last Saturday was a success!
Thanks to Casey and the students for their work!
Hereafter the video of the final performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pkNUUKeQ3k "]
Feb 2
8:15 school
9am EYFS meeting
11am lesson observation
7pm Fire-Hazard Pints and planning!
Send CPD participants email! Do I need the djembe?
Feb 3
8:15 school
12:20 mtg with Headmistress
Impro Show! Arrive by 8:30! Aieee!
Feb 4
6:30 Gwyn- take over the world
Feb 5-6
CPD weekend (meet Dutch folks at 9:50)
Harrow! (Call Ruth!)
Nik @ Night
This week we've got another Improv show (Thursday! 9:30! If you're in London you should really come! It's only £5! And we might even be funny!) And this weekend is Heist take 2 at the Old Police Station. (Sold out in 4 hours! Woah...) And school is trucking along (we've planned an open music day AND a performance/recital thing for next term!)
What you don't see listed in my diary is my daily ohmygodwhatamIgoingtodonext*year*???? freakouts. I try not to document those too much...
Busy busy busy bee.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Light and Darkness: The Tykes Have RE
I was having anxiety dreams last night about going back to school. Essentially first day of school jitters, again. It took me ages to actually get out of bed this morning as well for the same reason, but this afternoon? After having finished a full day of teaching? Good gracious I love my job!
This is my 3rd round of Spring term. I've now completed two full years of this job, so the same topics are coming round again. The reception tykes are doing Traditional Stories, which I love because it means I get to whip out Do You Know The Story? sung to the tune of What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor? I started my morning with some cutting and sticking, making A4 sized cards illustrating each of the verses. This meant that I got to harass the librarian (one of my favourite people at school) in order to locate fairy tale picture books with nice illustrations for my cards. The kids did great, the song is fun, and I love singing it because it fits in a portion of my voice that requires me to sing big in order to actually hit the notes.
Interestingly 2 out of the 3 classes said the name of the stories rhythmically, while the 3rd class just shouted out willy nilly. Of the two that did it rhythmically one class sings regularly as a matter of course, and the other had been singing for 10 minutes before I arrived due to a combination of confusion about when I would show up and my running over time with the first class. I've been wondering ever since how I could prep the 3rd class so that they also speak the titles rhythmically....
Music classes being over for the day it was then on to RE! A class that continues to amuse me by virtue of the fact that the school has me teaching it. (I feel distinctly unqualified.) Whatever; this week we were talking about anticipation! Particularly as it refers to Christmas and even more particularly as it refers to Jesus's birth. Also about the concept of the light/dark - good/bad metaphor. (I spent most of the class desperately hoping none of the kids would link it to race because I don't feel qualified to tackle that one either. They didn't, but they did immediately link it to Star Wars! ....of course.)
We had a class discussion where I drew a giant light bulb on the interactive white board. Good things about their holidays were written inside the bulb, and outside we wrote the bad things that had happened. (One child's grandfather had died. That was sad and we had an impromptu and completely spontaneous moment of silence for him.) We then read Isaiah 9:2 and 6 (Miss Casey? What's an extract?) where Jesus is described as a great light. They got to respond to that however they wanted- writing about light/good, dark/bad or drawing a picture or whatever.
They worked quietly! (mostly) And raised their hands when they needed help! And my most difficult kid did his work! And the results were varied and interesting!
When most of the class was finished we had about 10 minutes left and I had already gathered them at the front of the room where we were sitting in the dark,
Kid A: "Miss Casey? Um. Why are we sitting in the dark?"
Me: "I think it's a metaphor. I'm not really sure what point it's supposed to be making...I'm supposed to have a candle but instead we've just got the glow of the board lighting your faces."
Kid A: "So my face is lightness but my body is darkness?"
Me: "Sure."
Kid B, sitting off to the side: "Hey! I'm entirely in the darkness...I'm on the dark side!"
Cue mad scramble by about 50% of the kids to join Kid B on the dark side. So I invented a quick game- the dark side had a minute to come up with something evil, then the light side had to counter with something at least as good at the evil thing was bad. I, as the arbitrary arbiter got to choose which was more extreme and therefore won. Then we switched who got to go first. (The obvious flaw in this game mechanic being that whoever goes second necessarily wins.)
The first evil suggestion by the Dark Side was killing the Queen. I don't remember what exactly the Light Side came up with, but as it pertained to the whole world: they won. Then the Light Side came up with "being nice to everyone in the whole world" to which the Dark Side countered "The Devil eating the Universe!"
At which point I sent them all down to lunch.
This is my 3rd round of Spring term. I've now completed two full years of this job, so the same topics are coming round again. The reception tykes are doing Traditional Stories, which I love because it means I get to whip out Do You Know The Story? sung to the tune of What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor? I started my morning with some cutting and sticking, making A4 sized cards illustrating each of the verses. This meant that I got to harass the librarian (one of my favourite people at school) in order to locate fairy tale picture books with nice illustrations for my cards. The kids did great, the song is fun, and I love singing it because it fits in a portion of my voice that requires me to sing big in order to actually hit the notes.
Interestingly 2 out of the 3 classes said the name of the stories rhythmically, while the 3rd class just shouted out willy nilly. Of the two that did it rhythmically one class sings regularly as a matter of course, and the other had been singing for 10 minutes before I arrived due to a combination of confusion about when I would show up and my running over time with the first class. I've been wondering ever since how I could prep the 3rd class so that they also speak the titles rhythmically....
Music classes being over for the day it was then on to RE! A class that continues to amuse me by virtue of the fact that the school has me teaching it. (I feel distinctly unqualified.) Whatever; this week we were talking about anticipation! Particularly as it refers to Christmas and even more particularly as it refers to Jesus's birth. Also about the concept of the light/dark - good/bad metaphor. (I spent most of the class desperately hoping none of the kids would link it to race because I don't feel qualified to tackle that one either. They didn't, but they did immediately link it to Star Wars! ....of course.)
We had a class discussion where I drew a giant light bulb on the interactive white board. Good things about their holidays were written inside the bulb, and outside we wrote the bad things that had happened. (One child's grandfather had died. That was sad and we had an impromptu and completely spontaneous moment of silence for him.) We then read Isaiah 9:2 and 6 (Miss Casey? What's an extract?) where Jesus is described as a great light. They got to respond to that however they wanted- writing about light/good, dark/bad or drawing a picture or whatever.
They worked quietly! (mostly) And raised their hands when they needed help! And my most difficult kid did his work! And the results were varied and interesting!
When most of the class was finished we had about 10 minutes left and I had already gathered them at the front of the room where we were sitting in the dark,
Kid A: "Miss Casey? Um. Why are we sitting in the dark?"
Me: "I think it's a metaphor. I'm not really sure what point it's supposed to be making...I'm supposed to have a candle but instead we've just got the glow of the board lighting your faces."
Kid A: "So my face is lightness but my body is darkness?"
Me: "Sure."
Kid B, sitting off to the side: "Hey! I'm entirely in the darkness...I'm on the dark side!"
Cue mad scramble by about 50% of the kids to join Kid B on the dark side. So I invented a quick game- the dark side had a minute to come up with something evil, then the light side had to counter with something at least as good at the evil thing was bad. I, as the arbitrary arbiter got to choose which was more extreme and therefore won. Then we switched who got to go first. (The obvious flaw in this game mechanic being that whoever goes second necessarily wins.)
The first evil suggestion by the Dark Side was killing the Queen. I don't remember what exactly the Light Side came up with, but as it pertained to the whole world: they won. Then the Light Side came up with "being nice to everyone in the whole world" to which the Dark Side countered "The Devil eating the Universe!"
At which point I sent them all down to lunch.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Jingle Bells
Meredith had a Christmas Party and we played pass the parcel. The forfeit that I got was to sing a Christmas carol and accompany myself of guitar. I don't play guitar...but it's cool! I came up with a morose version of Jingle Bells and started playing it over and over again (don't I sound like fun to have at a party??) Dave whipped out his computer, recorded the song, and added a bunch of effects to it.
Not very secretly I *like* the result.
I still haven't figured out how to put just audio tracks up on this blog, but I can put up videos. So here are some pictures of wee 'airy ginger coos from Scotland last year with Sarah and Desh. Accompanied by the saddest/creepiest version of Jingle Bells I think I've ever sung....
Not very secretly I *like* the result.
I still haven't figured out how to put just audio tracks up on this blog, but I can put up videos. So here are some pictures of wee 'airy ginger coos from Scotland last year with Sarah and Desh. Accompanied by the saddest/creepiest version of Jingle Bells I think I've ever sung....
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
The Tykes are BACK!
Or rather, I am back with the tykes. In any case half term is over and we're together again at school. Christmas preparations are in full swing! The tiniest of the tykes are doing a medley of songs focusing on the theme of Stars! Because...that's Christmassy. Right?
Did you guys all know that in the UK jumping jacks are called star jumps? I totally called on that knowledge to create an impromptu bit of choreography for the tiniest tykes when they were getting super restless during my class. We had two other songs to learn, but they clearly needed to move, so I ended up standing them all up and then doing star jumps through the first two lines of Twinkle Twinkle. Then, emboldened by that, made the little hand actions into full body actions and called it a dance. Which we're now totally going to do during the show. (I love being in charge!)
On Tuesday I woke up at 5, decided I had another hour to sleep before my alarm went off, and then woke up again at 8. Since I'm meant to be *at* work by a quarter after 8, that was kind of a problem. After scurrying through some of the fastest day preparations I've ever done I managed to make it to school only an hour late. At which point I used 5 minutes to craft the wonkiest star puppets ever. (I love that I have to get to work on time in order to cut paper and stick things on to Popsicle sticks.) We used the puppets in "Five Little Stars," another one of our star themed songs for the show.
Today there was a tube strike (again) so I was late (again). It took over two hours to get from my house to school. Not to worry, I hit the ground running and started the bigger tykes off on their Christmas show tunes! All was going well through the first class- the songs have a super peppy backing track that meant that the tykes were like "Again! Again! Miss Casey, we want to sing it again!!!" Which, really, is all you could ever dare to dream of for a tyke's music class. So I was feeling nicely set up for the other two classes. However, when I sat down to start the second class I found that somewhere between the bottom of the stairs and the top of the stairs- the CD had broken in half.
Er...
I have no clue how that possibly could have happened given the fact that it was in. a. case. But oh well. I winged it. (To less acclaim than I was hoping for, but you do what you can.) So we're puttering along. The show is the first week of December (or maybe it works out to the second week of December...single digits anyway.) So we have our work cut out for us.
Did you guys all know that in the UK jumping jacks are called star jumps? I totally called on that knowledge to create an impromptu bit of choreography for the tiniest tykes when they were getting super restless during my class. We had two other songs to learn, but they clearly needed to move, so I ended up standing them all up and then doing star jumps through the first two lines of Twinkle Twinkle. Then, emboldened by that, made the little hand actions into full body actions and called it a dance. Which we're now totally going to do during the show. (I love being in charge!)
On Tuesday I woke up at 5, decided I had another hour to sleep before my alarm went off, and then woke up again at 8. Since I'm meant to be *at* work by a quarter after 8, that was kind of a problem. After scurrying through some of the fastest day preparations I've ever done I managed to make it to school only an hour late. At which point I used 5 minutes to craft the wonkiest star puppets ever. (I love that I have to get to work on time in order to cut paper and stick things on to Popsicle sticks.) We used the puppets in "Five Little Stars," another one of our star themed songs for the show.
Today there was a tube strike (again) so I was late (again). It took over two hours to get from my house to school. Not to worry, I hit the ground running and started the bigger tykes off on their Christmas show tunes! All was going well through the first class- the songs have a super peppy backing track that meant that the tykes were like "Again! Again! Miss Casey, we want to sing it again!!!" Which, really, is all you could ever dare to dream of for a tyke's music class. So I was feeling nicely set up for the other two classes. However, when I sat down to start the second class I found that somewhere between the bottom of the stairs and the top of the stairs- the CD had broken in half.
Er...
I have no clue how that possibly could have happened given the fact that it was in. a. case. But oh well. I winged it. (To less acclaim than I was hoping for, but you do what you can.) So we're puttering along. The show is the first week of December (or maybe it works out to the second week of December...single digits anyway.) So we have our work cut out for us.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Religious Education, or "well, this is fun"
Two weeks of Year 3 Religious Education (and English) in, and I'm having a ball. The first week RE went great and English was a disaster. The second week RE was a mess and English was spectacular. So we're doing what we can.
In RE the curriculum currently has us talking about Judaism and specifically Moses. (Can I just say how much I love following lesson plans that I haven't written? It takes out 99.9% of the stress of teaching for me.) We covered The Exodus first and so I grouped them into pairs. Partner one became the slave while partner two became the master for a couple of minutes.
Foolishly, I failed to put in a clause saying "DON'T HIT YOUR SLAVE!"
I know better now.
We then had a group discussion about what it felt like to be a slave (using the interactive white board! Those things are fun.) and what it felt like to be the master. We then talked about how the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt and how even today there are slaves around the world and how sometimes it can be because of totally arbitrary things like religion or race or whatever. I don't remember what we did next but I do know that I enjoy working with 8 and 9 year olds. They're just old enough to have their own opinions and actually have something interesting to say with fascinating links and ties to other subjects.
The first week they let me get away with answering "It's a Bible Story" when they asked "is this TRUE?" The second week they wised up, "Yes, but is the Bible true??"
Um.
Um.
....
"Yes, it's true! It really happened."
"Nu-uh! It didn't! It's just a story!"
Um.
Well. Look, guys. Here's the thing about religion; some things that some religions believe to be true and factually correct other don't believe to be true. So, yes, for many people in the world they believe that this is true. Many others don't.
"Yes, but did it really happen?"
Right. So these are the 10 commandments, everyone look at the board please?
Here's where RE completely fell apart the second week: I made groups of 4 to collaboratively write 5 commandments for living life well and then make a poster. A few of the groups worked just fine, but the group I had working in French was alternating between giggling maniacally and crying and the group across from them decided that *all* of their commandments would be about who not to fart on. There was so much hooting and hollering going on that I tried 4 different ways of simmering them down and getting their attention: clapping a pattern to clap back, turning the lights off, shouting over them (oops), and quietly saying "if you're listening and paying attention you'll put your finger on your nose" which worked just fine for the groups who were working well already but failed massively with the two groups that were already out of control.
I talked with their teacher afterwards and we mutually decided that the way in which I'd built the groups was...not ideal. So I now have a much better plan for which kids to combine with which kids. Learning, it's all about learning.
Here's the other place it went wrong with the Ten Commandments
Thou Shalt Not Kill
But Miss Casey? What about all the Egyptians that got drownded?
No, no, it's okay to kill Egyptians.
In RE the curriculum currently has us talking about Judaism and specifically Moses. (Can I just say how much I love following lesson plans that I haven't written? It takes out 99.9% of the stress of teaching for me.) We covered The Exodus first and so I grouped them into pairs. Partner one became the slave while partner two became the master for a couple of minutes.
Foolishly, I failed to put in a clause saying "DON'T HIT YOUR SLAVE!"
I know better now.
We then had a group discussion about what it felt like to be a slave (using the interactive white board! Those things are fun.) and what it felt like to be the master. We then talked about how the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt and how even today there are slaves around the world and how sometimes it can be because of totally arbitrary things like religion or race or whatever. I don't remember what we did next but I do know that I enjoy working with 8 and 9 year olds. They're just old enough to have their own opinions and actually have something interesting to say with fascinating links and ties to other subjects.
The first week they let me get away with answering "It's a Bible Story" when they asked "is this TRUE?" The second week they wised up, "Yes, but is the Bible true??"
Um.
Um.
....
"Yes, it's true! It really happened."
"Nu-uh! It didn't! It's just a story!"
Um.
Well. Look, guys. Here's the thing about religion; some things that some religions believe to be true and factually correct other don't believe to be true. So, yes, for many people in the world they believe that this is true. Many others don't.
"Yes, but did it really happen?"
Right. So these are the 10 commandments, everyone look at the board please?
Here's where RE completely fell apart the second week: I made groups of 4 to collaboratively write 5 commandments for living life well and then make a poster. A few of the groups worked just fine, but the group I had working in French was alternating between giggling maniacally and crying and the group across from them decided that *all* of their commandments would be about who not to fart on. There was so much hooting and hollering going on that I tried 4 different ways of simmering them down and getting their attention: clapping a pattern to clap back, turning the lights off, shouting over them (oops), and quietly saying "if you're listening and paying attention you'll put your finger on your nose" which worked just fine for the groups who were working well already but failed massively with the two groups that were already out of control.
I talked with their teacher afterwards and we mutually decided that the way in which I'd built the groups was...not ideal. So I now have a much better plan for which kids to combine with which kids. Learning, it's all about learning.
Here's the other place it went wrong with the Ten Commandments
Thou Shalt Not Kill
But Miss Casey? What about all the Egyptians that got drownded?
No, no, it's okay to kill Egyptians.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Interviews
Last week I was interviewed for the Evening Standard about "circle rules football" and this weekend I was interviewed by the BBC about the Pope saying that paedophilia was a disease. Do I have any reason to have any opinion on either of those things? No. But hey! I'm willing to talk on record!
I walked into the BBC interview by being near the Westminster Cathedral when they wanted some word on the street opinions. I don't really know what I said but it was something equivocal due mainly to my not following the subject and not being willing to have a defined opinion on something I know nothing about. I was enticed into it by the video camera...I have no excuse.
Circle Rules Football, however, I have the article in front of me right now. I got a call from Gwyn, who runs Fire Hazard, the games company I work with. He said, "hey, this guy is looking for some quotes about this game that riot ball is based on. You should call him." Riot ball is basically an amalgam of every ball sport you can think of, but played in the dark with glow sticks and a giant inflatable yoga ball. It's very silly and the lynch pin of "Survivor Sports" the indoor, glow-in-the-dark sports night Fire-Hazard runs fairly frequently.
Blah blah blah someone else's quote
If you Bing me this shows up. It's kind of fun and kind of silly.
I walked into the BBC interview by being near the Westminster Cathedral when they wanted some word on the street opinions. I don't really know what I said but it was something equivocal due mainly to my not following the subject and not being willing to have a defined opinion on something I know nothing about. I was enticed into it by the video camera...I have no excuse.
Circle Rules Football, however, I have the article in front of me right now. I got a call from Gwyn, who runs Fire Hazard, the games company I work with. He said, "hey, this guy is looking for some quotes about this game that riot ball is based on. You should call him." Riot ball is basically an amalgam of every ball sport you can think of, but played in the dark with glow sticks and a giant inflatable yoga ball. It's very silly and the lynch pin of "Survivor Sports" the indoor, glow-in-the-dark sports night Fire-Hazard runs fairly frequently.
"One player is Casey Middaugh, (side note: have I ever played circle rules football? No. But I *have* played and run Riot ball, which is loosely related...) a freelance music teacher from Clapton. Casey, 26, never really played team sports, preferring rock-climbing and yoga. (where on earth did I get rock-climbing from? I mean, yeah, I've done it a few times and enjoyed it but honestly? That combination is a straight quote from Princess Diaries. I'm so embarrassed...yoga I will own up to, however.) She was attracted to Circle Rules Football (no I wasn't.) because of the creative way in which it's played. "You can dribble the ball, kick or toss it. The only thing you can't do is hold on to it," she says. "So I think it is funnier because it is so obviously ridiculous that there's no pressure. I don't want to play a team sport with people who've been playing football since they were little and are super intense about it."
Blah blah blah someone else's quote
"Most players stumble upon Circle Rules Football by word of mouth- a manner very much in keeping with the laid-back philosophy of the game."Don't get me wrong, they get competitive," says Casey. "But competitive in a silly way. It's very tongue-in-cheek." (would I voluntarily use the phrase 'tongue-in-cheek?' no. It was fed to me. But sure, I'll go along with that. It is a game played with a yoga ball after all.)
If you Bing me this shows up. It's kind of fun and kind of silly.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Work Hours and Whatnot
Here's what I started writing last week:
Since I don't have any formal education training this will be a provisional arrangement until everyone is satisfied that I can do the work effectively (or, you know, not.) I'm quite pleased with how this is working out and though none of it is set in stone, I'm feeling cautiously excited.
Want to know what I will be teaching this group of 8 and 9 year olds? (The lesson plans and curriculum are written, all I have to do is follow them.)
Religious Education.
(and English.)
"My hours are all up in the air currently which makes me feel anxious, but I've done what I can about it and at this point all I can do is sit and wait- secure in the knowledge that my direct superiors are crossing their fingers to have me around for two days and at this point it is up to...um...other people. (Not really sure who to be perfectly honest.) I continue to have a lot of faith in the new Head Mistress, she's got her head on straight and I feel like we're on pretty much the same page about what sort of hours I'm hoping for. (And on the same page about how that probably isn't going to happen.)"This week our new headmistress has worked genius miracles and it looks like I will be getting a day and a half. In order to fill out some of those hours what I will be doing is taking two hours of lessons away from one of the year 3 teachers who is also the head of Key Stage 2 (years 3 through 6) so that she has time to do the administrative portion of her job.
Since I don't have any formal education training this will be a provisional arrangement until everyone is satisfied that I can do the work effectively (or, you know, not.) I'm quite pleased with how this is working out and though none of it is set in stone, I'm feeling cautiously excited.
Want to know what I will be teaching this group of 8 and 9 year olds? (The lesson plans and curriculum are written, all I have to do is follow them.)
Religious Education.
(and English.)
Tykes Music Club
I'm teaching two music clubs on Wednesdays now, which is a great deal of fun. I'm continuing the tykes' music club and then following that I have a new Key Stage 2 (8-11 year olds) composition club. And OH! I'm excited about that one. But lets talk tykes first....
I have nine of them in the club. They are squirrelly as tykes are wont to be, so maybe this wasn't the most brilliant idea ever? (Or maybe it was genius. I'll reserve judgement until I have them again next week.) What happened was this: I was digging around in the resource bookshelf in the music room and found a book called A Sackful of Songs by Jane Newberry. It has some delightful songs in it and I thought "wonderful! I won't be recycling material that these tykes have already seen before!" before choosing a gem called "Scary Monster!" (exclamation point helpfully included.)
This song, like many songs for tykes, involves changing actions. Always a good thing since that gives them an opportunity to control the song and get creative with it. The song is about a scary green monster roaring. Or laughing. Or crying or jumping or you get the point.
So we roared for a bit and that went fine. A couple of tykes were really in to the roaring and a few more were staring off into the distance. It seemed like it was time to move on to another action. So we stomped for a bit and then the song turned out to be about dinosaurs and then dragons and then back to monsters again before little C. piped up with: "I want the monster to eat me."
Very matter of factly like that.
(Exclamation point helpfully not included.)
So I "ate" C. by tickling her belly and then oooh did the floodgates open.
"Me! Me! Eat MEeee!!!"
The tykes scattered all over the room and cowered gleefully under the tables. I said I wouldn't eat any of them unless they all sang- so they all sang with gusto while I crawled menacingly around on the floor tickling each of them in turn whenever I could reach them.
I feel certain I wasn't meant to do that, but I can't actually think of a good reason why except for the whole running in the classroom thing and the fact that I have now set a precedent. (I think it is really the precedent that is going to bite me in the butt.) On the other hand I got them to sing the song enough times so that they all have a handle on the tune and the words and I did that without bashing it repetitively into their skulls while they sat down in a circle. Six of one, half a dozen of the other?
I have nine of them in the club. They are squirrelly as tykes are wont to be, so maybe this wasn't the most brilliant idea ever? (Or maybe it was genius. I'll reserve judgement until I have them again next week.) What happened was this: I was digging around in the resource bookshelf in the music room and found a book called A Sackful of Songs by Jane Newberry. It has some delightful songs in it and I thought "wonderful! I won't be recycling material that these tykes have already seen before!" before choosing a gem called "Scary Monster!" (exclamation point helpfully included.)
This song, like many songs for tykes, involves changing actions. Always a good thing since that gives them an opportunity to control the song and get creative with it. The song is about a scary green monster roaring. Or laughing. Or crying or jumping or you get the point.
So we roared for a bit and that went fine. A couple of tykes were really in to the roaring and a few more were staring off into the distance. It seemed like it was time to move on to another action. So we stomped for a bit and then the song turned out to be about dinosaurs and then dragons and then back to monsters again before little C. piped up with: "I want the monster to eat me."
Very matter of factly like that.
(Exclamation point helpfully not included.)
So I "ate" C. by tickling her belly and then oooh did the floodgates open.
"Me! Me! Eat MEeee!!!"
The tykes scattered all over the room and cowered gleefully under the tables. I said I wouldn't eat any of them unless they all sang- so they all sang with gusto while I crawled menacingly around on the floor tickling each of them in turn whenever I could reach them.
I feel certain I wasn't meant to do that, but I can't actually think of a good reason why except for the whole running in the classroom thing and the fact that I have now set a precedent. (I think it is really the precedent that is going to bite me in the butt.) On the other hand I got them to sing the song enough times so that they all have a handle on the tune and the words and I did that without bashing it repetitively into their skulls while they sat down in a circle. Six of one, half a dozen of the other?
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Tykes' Teachers Get Assessed
My mid year assessment was meant to have happened weeks ago, but due to a number of reasons(unexpected visiting doctors during "people who help us week" and an instrumental concert) it happened today.
Linda was my assessor and even though I have now been at school for a year (official! I started last year right after spring-term half-term break and half-term break starts next week so I have now done a full and complete year cycle.) I had yet to go through an assessment. Now, Linda and I work together every week- we teach club together on Wednesdays and we've done quite a lot of planning for the department together- so Linda ought not to be intimidating. She wasn't really intimidating so much as the concept of being assessed was intimidating. In spite of regularly being told by my co-workers that I am doing a good job, I am still convinced that I'm due for a talking to at any. moment.
I had filled out an Official Lesson Plan form with things like "Key Learning Intentions (WALT)" ... and "Plenary" .... I think this is one of those places where if I actually had teacher training I would know what these things meant. As it was I listed what concepts we were covering and how we would review the songs at the end of the class.
The lesson went well. We worked on Staccato (short and discrete) and Legato (connected) in the form of Frogs and Snakes as well as continuing work on our "Do You Know The Story" song.
We've already listened to staccato sounds and jumped like frogs on the down beat, and last week we listened to legato sounds and moved our hands like undulating snakes. This week I introduced the idea of using our voices like Frogs and Snakes (super short, barking out each syllable individually or completely slurred together). We started by repeating the names of our teachers in the style of whichever laminated picture I was holding up that we we were working on and then moved on to repeating all the tykes' names in that manner as well.
Following all that we reviewed "Do You Know The Story" and tried out writing and singing some new verses. Then we sang the verses with "frog" (staccato) voices and "snake" (legato) voices.
So there you go. There were some warm up and ending things as well- but pretty much- that is what the meat of one of my lessons looks like. The kids did a very good job with the staccato/legato contrast and though I really should have set up the writing of new verses in a different way a couple of lessons ago- they still came up with some interesting and fun verses today as well. Mostly about Power Rangers.
Part of the assessment is immediately sitting down with your assessor and talking about how the lesson went. There is also a written portion that Linda gets to write up tonight. She said that I had an exciting and engaging manner with the kids and I that I was very clear with both what I was doing and with what I wanted the tykes to do. Also that the lesson plan was excellent. (Woo!) She said these things a couple of times and a couple of different ways and I'm sure my facial expressions were concerning her but I couldn't relax until I got to hear what I needed to work on. (Casey! Relax!)
What I need to work on is classroom management- I'm very positive with the tykes- praising good behavior and pointing out kids who are correctly modeling what I'm looking for, but I need to gain more confidence and the authority or presence or whatever that is that means that the kids do what I ask them to the first time I ask them. Also- the teachers in the classroom. A lot of the time a considerable amount of noise is coming from the classroom teachers or assistants who use my class as an opportunity to catch up on things around the room like typing, tutoring one of the tykes (seriously?), chatting with the other teachers, microwaving the tykes' lunches, and today: stuffing a bunch of plastic bags into another plastic bag. (The bags were so loud that I actually did ask her to stop, which was fine, but everything else? Not so much.)
The other thing I need to work on is Plenary (apparently the final section of a traditional three part lesson...huh. I still don't know what WALT stands for.) And Linda and I are going to continue to work on that. We came up with some good ideas that might help both issues- namely small group work and giving creative or quizzing tasks to pairs of tykes. So all in all? Good.
Linda was my assessor and even though I have now been at school for a year (official! I started last year right after spring-term half-term break and half-term break starts next week so I have now done a full and complete year cycle.) I had yet to go through an assessment. Now, Linda and I work together every week- we teach club together on Wednesdays and we've done quite a lot of planning for the department together- so Linda ought not to be intimidating. She wasn't really intimidating so much as the concept of being assessed was intimidating. In spite of regularly being told by my co-workers that I am doing a good job, I am still convinced that I'm due for a talking to at any. moment.
I had filled out an Official Lesson Plan form with things like "Key Learning Intentions (WALT)" ... and "Plenary" .... I think this is one of those places where if I actually had teacher training I would know what these things meant. As it was I listed what concepts we were covering and how we would review the songs at the end of the class.
The lesson went well. We worked on Staccato (short and discrete) and Legato (connected) in the form of Frogs and Snakes as well as continuing work on our "Do You Know The Story" song.
We've already listened to staccato sounds and jumped like frogs on the down beat, and last week we listened to legato sounds and moved our hands like undulating snakes. This week I introduced the idea of using our voices like Frogs and Snakes (super short, barking out each syllable individually or completely slurred together). We started by repeating the names of our teachers in the style of whichever laminated picture I was holding up that we we were working on and then moved on to repeating all the tykes' names in that manner as well.
Following all that we reviewed "Do You Know The Story" and tried out writing and singing some new verses. Then we sang the verses with "frog" (staccato) voices and "snake" (legato) voices.
So there you go. There were some warm up and ending things as well- but pretty much- that is what the meat of one of my lessons looks like. The kids did a very good job with the staccato/legato contrast and though I really should have set up the writing of new verses in a different way a couple of lessons ago- they still came up with some interesting and fun verses today as well. Mostly about Power Rangers.
Part of the assessment is immediately sitting down with your assessor and talking about how the lesson went. There is also a written portion that Linda gets to write up tonight. She said that I had an exciting and engaging manner with the kids and I that I was very clear with both what I was doing and with what I wanted the tykes to do. Also that the lesson plan was excellent. (Woo!) She said these things a couple of times and a couple of different ways and I'm sure my facial expressions were concerning her but I couldn't relax until I got to hear what I needed to work on. (Casey! Relax!)
What I need to work on is classroom management- I'm very positive with the tykes- praising good behavior and pointing out kids who are correctly modeling what I'm looking for, but I need to gain more confidence and the authority or presence or whatever that is that means that the kids do what I ask them to the first time I ask them. Also- the teachers in the classroom. A lot of the time a considerable amount of noise is coming from the classroom teachers or assistants who use my class as an opportunity to catch up on things around the room like typing, tutoring one of the tykes (seriously?), chatting with the other teachers, microwaving the tykes' lunches, and today: stuffing a bunch of plastic bags into another plastic bag. (The bags were so loud that I actually did ask her to stop, which was fine, but everything else? Not so much.)
The other thing I need to work on is Plenary (apparently the final section of a traditional three part lesson...huh. I still don't know what WALT stands for.) And Linda and I are going to continue to work on that. We came up with some good ideas that might help both issues- namely small group work and giving creative or quizzing tasks to pairs of tykes. So all in all? Good.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
I wrote a little list
Things I have been meaning to tell you about:
1. I eat like a five year old. Lunch? Tuna sandwich and carrot sticks (and cucumber!). Dinner? Bowl of cereal, a hand full of olives, and some chocolate pudding.
2. I have new flatmates! Ella is settling in to Dublin for her study abroad 5 months and so Jenny and John Henry have moved in to her room. Jenny is a technical theatre student at school and is, surprisingly, from Tacoma. John Henry is a philosophy student and from Sweden. They are very nice and we managed to get the keys all worked out in spite of the fact that my initial attempt to make them keys resulted in four inner door keys and no outer door keys. Oops. They are still moving in so I do not yet have any concrete things to tell you about them. More will come, I am sure.
3. Something is wrong with my keyboard that is preventing me from using my apostrophe hence the lack of any contractions in this particular post. I do not actually talk like this when I am speaking.
4. One Wednesday of last week I DID in fact work. In spite of arriving in London around midnight on Tuesday-Wednesday. (I apparently also cannot do slashes either. What is up with my keyboard?) I managed to get through that full day of teaching very well indeed. Yay! Mostly what I remember is that during garden time we had to keep telling the tykes "Do not kick over anyone elses snowmen!" and then at the French school I *almost* did not have any students. And then one showed up... but I manfully came up with a lesson plan for my one, mute, four year old. Fortunately a couple of the other teachers came and hung out with me and the four year old (excuse me. FIVE year old. He had a birthday.) so that was nice and I got to use my new music books including one that matches up works of art from the Metropolitan museum with movements from various pieces. I got A. (the FIVE year old) to listen to "The Elephant" and draw an Elephant on the board. Success!
5. Consort has six members! We're going to be playing for the Early Music open day next week so we have to pretend like we actually practice instead of just sight reading music together. Good thing we're so good. (And suddenly my apostrophe/slash works! Fantastic! (Do you like how this is a real time analysis of what is going on with my computer? I just want to keep ya'll precisely up to date.))
6. I love my yoga class. There were only three of us today which meant we all got bunches of personal attention which is just SO good and MAN do I miss yoga when I don't have it. That being said I'm still in my yoga togs and now I'm a little bit chilly. What solution should I go with? Put on another sweater? Go get a blanket? Turn up the heat? Stop eating cereal for dinner?
7. I'm listening to Sons of the Never Wrong and if you don't know who they are- you should check them out. Fun fun band from Chicago. They make me happy.
8. In one week I'm playing solo gamba for an art reception. Wish me luck, I'm nervous about it. I'll just be background music (this is a good thing) and I'll be improvising "light and gentle music" so that should be good.
9. I'm still working on my lesson plans for this term which *technically* were due on Monday but considering that last term I finished them half an hour before we left for our end of term Christmas Lunch I'm really doing quite well: I have the next two weeks planned. (Two weeks if you include tomorrow...) But I'm all excited about it right now!
We're working on keeping a pulse (being able to hear where the beat is); the difference between staccato and legato (so far we've only done staccato- frog jumps! Legato is going to be snakes); and we're going to start beginning composition tomorrow by linking the topic that they're learning about (nursery: hibernating animals; reception: traditional stories) and using those words to create rhythms (i.e., hedgehog hedgehog bear door mouse OR Cinderella Jack Goldilocks Jack) I have pictures of all these things so they can arrange the pictures themselves and write the songs/rhythms that way. Clever, right? Like I said *I'm* excited about it.
10. I finally had a solid feeling session with my Tuesday kids. The Tuesday kids are...a challenge. Over break I read a bunch of early education books and met with a very experienced elementary music teacher which was really helpful in terms of coming up with strategies for dealing with that group of kids. Things that really helped today:
*writing up the lesson plan on the board before they entered the room- I don't know if it helped them so much, but I felt much more secure being able to look up and SEE what we were going to do next. To know that I had a really clear plan for what the class was going to look like.
*writing their names on the board and putting up smiley faces when they were being good/paying attention/listen ting and X's when they were interrupting/calling me names in French (thanks, Kid.)/screaming/rolling around on the floor. Oh. that makes them sound much worse than they are, though truthfully they do do all of those things. But not by the end of class! By the end of class I honestly and sincerely thanked them for being so good and paying such good attention. So lets keep that up, yes?
1. I eat like a five year old. Lunch? Tuna sandwich and carrot sticks (and cucumber!). Dinner? Bowl of cereal, a hand full of olives, and some chocolate pudding.
2. I have new flatmates! Ella is settling in to Dublin for her study abroad 5 months and so Jenny and John Henry have moved in to her room. Jenny is a technical theatre student at school and is, surprisingly, from Tacoma. John Henry is a philosophy student and from Sweden. They are very nice and we managed to get the keys all worked out in spite of the fact that my initial attempt to make them keys resulted in four inner door keys and no outer door keys. Oops. They are still moving in so I do not yet have any concrete things to tell you about them. More will come, I am sure.
3. Something is wrong with my keyboard that is preventing me from using my apostrophe hence the lack of any contractions in this particular post. I do not actually talk like this when I am speaking.
4. One Wednesday of last week I DID in fact work. In spite of arriving in London around midnight on Tuesday-Wednesday. (I apparently also cannot do slashes either. What is up with my keyboard?) I managed to get through that full day of teaching very well indeed. Yay! Mostly what I remember is that during garden time we had to keep telling the tykes "Do not kick over anyone elses snowmen!" and then at the French school I *almost* did not have any students. And then one showed up... but I manfully came up with a lesson plan for my one, mute, four year old. Fortunately a couple of the other teachers came and hung out with me and the four year old (excuse me. FIVE year old. He had a birthday.) so that was nice and I got to use my new music books including one that matches up works of art from the Metropolitan museum with movements from various pieces. I got A. (the FIVE year old) to listen to "The Elephant" and draw an Elephant on the board. Success!
5. Consort has six members! We're going to be playing for the Early Music open day next week so we have to pretend like we actually practice instead of just sight reading music together. Good thing we're so good. (And suddenly my apostrophe/slash works! Fantastic! (Do you like how this is a real time analysis of what is going on with my computer? I just want to keep ya'll precisely up to date.))
6. I love my yoga class. There were only three of us today which meant we all got bunches of personal attention which is just SO good and MAN do I miss yoga when I don't have it. That being said I'm still in my yoga togs and now I'm a little bit chilly. What solution should I go with? Put on another sweater? Go get a blanket? Turn up the heat? Stop eating cereal for dinner?
7. I'm listening to Sons of the Never Wrong and if you don't know who they are- you should check them out. Fun fun band from Chicago. They make me happy.
8. In one week I'm playing solo gamba for an art reception. Wish me luck, I'm nervous about it. I'll just be background music (this is a good thing) and I'll be improvising "light and gentle music" so that should be good.
9. I'm still working on my lesson plans for this term which *technically* were due on Monday but considering that last term I finished them half an hour before we left for our end of term Christmas Lunch I'm really doing quite well: I have the next two weeks planned. (Two weeks if you include tomorrow...) But I'm all excited about it right now!
We're working on keeping a pulse (being able to hear where the beat is); the difference between staccato and legato (so far we've only done staccato- frog jumps! Legato is going to be snakes); and we're going to start beginning composition tomorrow by linking the topic that they're learning about (nursery: hibernating animals; reception: traditional stories) and using those words to create rhythms (i.e., hedgehog hedgehog bear door mouse OR Cinderella Jack Goldilocks Jack) I have pictures of all these things so they can arrange the pictures themselves and write the songs/rhythms that way. Clever, right? Like I said *I'm* excited about it.
10. I finally had a solid feeling session with my Tuesday kids. The Tuesday kids are...a challenge. Over break I read a bunch of early education books and met with a very experienced elementary music teacher which was really helpful in terms of coming up with strategies for dealing with that group of kids. Things that really helped today:
*writing up the lesson plan on the board before they entered the room- I don't know if it helped them so much, but I felt much more secure being able to look up and SEE what we were going to do next. To know that I had a really clear plan for what the class was going to look like.
*writing their names on the board and putting up smiley faces when they were being good/paying attention/listen ting and X's when they were interrupting/calling me names in French (thanks, Kid.)/screaming/rolling around on the floor. Oh. that makes them sound much worse than they are, though truthfully they do do all of those things. But not by the end of class! By the end of class I honestly and sincerely thanked them for being so good and paying such good attention. So lets keep that up, yes?
Monday, December 14, 2009
Learning Going On Everywhere
Things I have learned from doing the nativity play and carol sings:
1. Make rehearsal CDs. Make them early. Have the track list on a USB drive in case anyone loses their copy of the CD. Make my *own* copy of the CD so that I don't need to keep borrowing classroom copies.
2. Learn to play the piano! My gosh, all of this would be *so* much easier if I could play the piano instead of relying on CDs (which keep getting lost/scratched/etc.) and/or hoping that Linda is available for rehearsals.
3. It is important to have the set lists early on so that we can see in what ways the songs need to be edited- is the key too high? Too low? Are the words too complicated? Are the words so simple that the tykes get bored singing halfway through the song and trail off before staring into space? This is good to know before the show!
4. Actions for every part of the song (don't leave one verse with the tykes just standing there because you couldn't think of a good action for "shepherds"). Simple is better. Reinforcing the lyrics is best. Sure, let the kids help out with the actions- but only one action per line- that's how it will end up anyway and doing too many just confuses the issue.
5. Sort out the choreography of leading- are the teachers doing everything? Am I doing everything? Either I need to get out of the way and the teachers need a chance to practice the whole group standing up bits or I need to know when each and every kid has their line so that I can cue and prompt when necessary. Again- figure this out early on! And ask the teachers what they would prefer! Having the classroom teachers totally on board is both polite and necessary.
That's what I've got off the top of my head right now, I'm sure there is more that I'm currently forgetting...
1. Make rehearsal CDs. Make them early. Have the track list on a USB drive in case anyone loses their copy of the CD. Make my *own* copy of the CD so that I don't need to keep borrowing classroom copies.
2. Learn to play the piano! My gosh, all of this would be *so* much easier if I could play the piano instead of relying on CDs (which keep getting lost/scratched/etc.) and/or hoping that Linda is available for rehearsals.
3. It is important to have the set lists early on so that we can see in what ways the songs need to be edited- is the key too high? Too low? Are the words too complicated? Are the words so simple that the tykes get bored singing halfway through the song and trail off before staring into space? This is good to know before the show!
4. Actions for every part of the song (don't leave one verse with the tykes just standing there because you couldn't think of a good action for "shepherds"). Simple is better. Reinforcing the lyrics is best. Sure, let the kids help out with the actions- but only one action per line- that's how it will end up anyway and doing too many just confuses the issue.
5. Sort out the choreography of leading- are the teachers doing everything? Am I doing everything? Either I need to get out of the way and the teachers need a chance to practice the whole group standing up bits or I need to know when each and every kid has their line so that I can cue and prompt when necessary. Again- figure this out early on! And ask the teachers what they would prefer! Having the classroom teachers totally on board is both polite and necessary.
That's what I've got off the top of my head right now, I'm sure there is more that I'm currently forgetting...
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